Bizarre Barber truly lives up to its name – the game sees you see play as a barber who cuts aliens’ hair in the middle of a seemingly abandoned subway platform. The game was developed by Synesthetic Echo, supported by Oculus and the NYU Game Center Incubator, and is available for PC VR now.
As you can see from the embedded gameplay and trailer, the game takes place in a surreal and saturated world, with gameplay set to the beat of some funky yet fittingly unusual music beats. You’ll be chopping the locks of some bizarre-looking creatures as they float past you — there’s no barber’s chairs here. “Players will make perfect cuts, dodge dangerous obstacles, catch speed boosts and power-ups, and even earn money to unlock new tools and new worlds,” according to Synesthetic Echo.
The developers stated that Bizarre Barber was a “labour of love” and inspired by their experience immigrating to New York, 5 years ago. “Subways! Hairstyles! Beautiful people! New music, food and smells everywhere! But also: pollution, never-ending hustle, capitalism at its worst (is there even the best?), daily struggle to define oneself in the place with millions of souls. We reflected on all our experience in the game, by making it loud, joyful, weird, surreal, sometimes challenging and even scary!”
The added context frames the quirky game in a whole new charming light. Bizarre Barber features 7 unique worlds and 13 levels, which the developers say should take you around 60-80 minutes to complete. Each level is only 2-3 minutes long, but can be replayed and mastered before moving onto the next.
The title is a grant winner from the 2018 Oculus Launchpad program and is now available on Steam, the Oculus Store and Viveport. According to Synesthetic Echo, a PSVR release in the future is likely and they’re also considering an Oculus Quest release, pending Oculus’ approval.
